Page 41 of Duke for the Summer

“Oh, Nate, it’s empty,” Gracie said. “Here, let’s add more.”

“Shit.” He flexed his hand, massaging the palm. “Sorry.” Jacopo had come around the corner of the house, carrying a pallet of mason jars. He smiled as he saw Nate looking at him, but his expression changed to one of concern as he got closer.

“Something wrong?” he asked, setting the jars down on the table. He studied Nate’s face. “Sorry I was gone so long. Zio Beppe insisted that I try his new batch of moonshine.”

“Moonshine?” Nate forced himself to smile. “You’ve been holding out on me. Come on, I want to try some, too. It might even make me brave enough to practice some of the Italian I’ve learned.”

It did, even though it also set Nate’s stomach on fire and scorched the back of his throat. After a few shots, Nate was a regular conversationalist in Italian, confidently telling Beatrice,I like tomatoes, and sayingWow, so big, to Nonna Rosina about the sauce pot. He even told uncle Beppe that the moonshine wasmolto delizioso, which was a blatant lie, since it tasted like something that probably wasn’t safe for human consumption. Jacopo’s family responded to his linguistic efforts with the same indulgent delight they’d show a dog who had just learned to roll over, ruffling his hair and exclaiming that he was very smart.

“Jacopo teach good,” Nate replied in Italian, pretty surehe was butchering it. He glanced across the yard at him. Jacopo had stepped away to smoke, but he looked up, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and caught Nate’s eye, and for a moment there was so much pride, and heat, and naked affection in his face that Nate’s heart stuttered and his cheeks, already bright red, felt like the surface of the sun.

He wondered how to say,I like you, in Italian. Or,stay with me.

“I more work,” he told Beatrice, miming grinding up tomatoes, and fled back over to where Gracie was, in the shade, away from the heat of the fire.

As the afternoon stretched on, Nate’s muscles turned liquid, and his brain started to calm, a pleasant fog settling over everything. He hadn’t actually done anything physical in so long, and the repetitive tasks felt good, simple and enjoyably mindless. Putting the tomatoes through the food mill, pouring the sauce into jars, stacking the jars and labeling them. Jacopo was at his side on and off, sometimes leaving to help Nonna or his mom with another job. They didn’t talk much, but Nate tried to soak up as much of his nearness as he could. He really didn’t want to think about what would happen next month. It wasn’t worth it to torture himself, and he tried to push away the sourness he had felt earlier, to ignore it like he’d ignore an ache during a workout. Something remained, though, as he tracked Jacopo across the yard. A taste in the back of his throat, a tightness in his lungs.

“He seems happy,” Gracie said. She yawned, rubbing a hand over her face. There was tomato sauce in one of her eyebrows.

Nate started, coming back to the present. “Who?” he asked.

“Jacopo, silly. It’s nice to see him have a friend. Maybe you can keep in touch, just like Thea and me.”

A friend. Right. Nate swallowed. He thought of the alleyway in Palermo, outside the club. How Jacopo had kissed him like he didn’t care who could see, their lips sticky-sweet with liquor. “I don’t think so. He wants to get out of here, like you said.”

Gracie shrugged. “That doesn’t mean you can’t stay friends.”

Nate didn’t want to allow himself to hope, so he just reached for another jar, screwing on the lid, his heart pounding.

15.

It was Ferragosto, and the already-sleepy little town had completely shut down as people closed their businesses and got together with family for a day of relaxation and food. It had never been one of Jacopo’s favorite holidays, focused as it was on quality time. There wasn’t really anything to do except talk to people, something that had always made him feel anxious and out-of-place. In past years, as the day went on and the larger family group separated off into different conversations, he’d always found himself never quite fitting into any of them, and he’d often ended up alone, tucked away somewhere with a book and his cigarettes. But this year Nate was here, and everything was different. Nate, the only person he actually wanted to spend time with. It was torture, being here at his side, surrounded by everyone else.

They had come over early to help prepare the biscotti–two kinds, Nonna’s recipe and Mamma’s–and emotions were high in the kitchen as the two women tossed back and forth subtle barbs and pointed gestures about whose variation was better. Another holiday tradition that made Jacopo anxious. His head hurt; he’d had three espressos already, and the smells of almond and sugar in the kitchen were overwhelming, cloying on his palate. He looked around for Nate, just wanting to meet his eyes, knowing his smile of encouragement would make some of the tension fade from Jacopo’s shoulders. He wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. Nonna had given him the job of grating orange peels, but apparently he hadn’t been doing it expertly enough for her, because she had taken over, and Nate was nowhere tobe seen. He really knew nothing about cooking, Jacopo thought, with a rush of fondness. His heart clenched, wondering how Nate would feed himself after Jacopo was gone. They’d have to convince him to hire a chef. Or maybe Jacopo could stay longer, and teach him–

But that was impossible. His obligation to Lucia grew heavier and heavier in his mind as September approached. He hoped it wouldn’t be too late, that she would still want to hear from him.

Jacopo went out into the living room, where Gracie was curled up on the sofa, scrolling on her phone, the TV on in the background, showing the Pope’s address for the Ascension of the Virgin Mary.

“He went upstairs,” she said, not looking up. “If you’re looking for Nate.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s it going in there?”

“Brutal, as always.”

“Yeah. I don’t know why you always try to help.”

Jacopo grunted. It was easy for her. Gracie could hang out on the couch all day, go off to school, never get married, and she’d still be everybody’s favorite. He massaged the back of his neck, not liking the dark cloud building in his chest. Family holidays always got to him. He turned, heading up the stairs.

He found Nate in the hallway upstairs, looking at the family portraits along the wall. Jacopo knew most of them by heart: the stern, posed, black-and-white photos of generations of Brunettis, the glamor shots of his mother in her wedding dress, her hair gigantic and her shoulder pads even bigger, the faded Kodak prints of him and his sisters playing on the beach.

“Did you get bored?” Jacopo asked.

Nate chuckled. “You know me too well. I was trying to watch that thing on TV, with the Pope? Gracie said it’s about theVirgin Mary’s body getting, like, hauled up to Heaven. Sounds a little creepy.”

“A lot of Catholicism is a little creepy.” There was a smear of flour on his cheek, and Jacopo brushed it away.

---